East Africa Regional Communications Consultant

Job Description

Scope of work The International Rescue Committee (IRC) operates in regions globally, responding to humanitarian crises and providing aid to those in need. In recent times, East Africa has been plagued by a series of climate crises, beginning with severe drought followed by massive flooding due to El Nino weather patterns, and now compounded by the escalating situation in Sudan, number one on the IRC’s emergency Watchlist. To effectively ad-dress these challenges and elevate awareness and response and as the requirement for high quality content and digital assets rise, IRC urgently requires a consultant dedicated to collecting, collating, and producing high quality content from East Africa.

The East Africa Regional Communications Consultant scope of work will be focused on identifying, gathering and packaging powerful digital content from the East Africa region to connect audiences to IRC's work around the world and support IRC's goals of building income, profile and influence. The role calls for a sharp reporter with outstanding storytelling skills that bring the IRC's life-saving work in response to the multiple crises across the East Africa region to life for external audiences and donors. They develop information and content assets that showcase the IRC's on the ground impact. This position will work closely with frontline programming colleagues to gather critical programming information, spot stories, train programming colleagues, and collect content. They will give up to 20% of their time towards regional communications and advocacy objectives. This role calls for a very organized, savvy journalist/content gatherer who has experience operating in fluid and complex humanitarian emergency situations. You should have a solid under-standing of the humanitarian sector, experience working with frontline programs to spot outstanding subjects and a gift for identifying compelling angles and creative ways of tell-ing stories in difficult circumstances. We are looking for a strong multimedia producer who brings solid writing and digital engagement skills. You'll gather content yourself, priori-tize information about IRC programs, and manage the East Africa regional social media page including collecting, collating, and writing content for it and relevant global social media channels.

Deliverables: During the consultancy period, the consultant is expected to: • Serve as a lead storyteller for the East Africa region: Work with frontline programs, partners and country communications officers to continuously gather programming information, spot outstanding stories, and deliver high quality content to communicate to multiple audiences, including the general public in IRC's target markets , media outlets, and major institutional and corporate donors. • Complete a 6 month editorial content calendar for east Africa with creation of multiple high-quality posts a week on the East Africa regional Instagram page • Implement content-gathering trips in the East Africa region: o Work with communications, marketing and program colleagues to shape trip requirements and resolve as feasible. o Then work independently and/or with freelance staff to gather rich case stud-ies and high-quality assets (interviews, videos, photos, etc.). • Produce a broad range of compelling multimedia content designed to engage IRC's audience targets, including short-form videos, text-based explainers, social media posts, data-based features, live event's programming, and more. • Have fluency in all elements of post-production—backing up data, building and organizing Adobe Premiere project files, color correction and grading, sound design, motion graphics, editing music tracks, building engaging and coherent sequences, exporting, compression, sharing out results in different formats, preservation of completed projects for archiving

Qualifications

Requirements: •Minimum 3-5 years of professional experience producing multimedia digital content for an international news outlet or nonprofit organization. Strong interest in internation-al affairs and humanitarian issues. •Demonstrated ability to develop compelling multi-media packages (with some combi-nation of photo, video, and graphic skills); some comfort with degree of comfort and proficiency with multimedia and film production tools (Large “ENG” video cameras, DSLR & Mirrorless cameras, smartphones, GoPros, Drones, basic lighting, grip gear, location and studio sound setups, Adobe Creative Cloud products) •Demonstrated ability managing social media pages including Instagram and Twitter •Sharp written and verbal communication skills. •Ability to work well independently and as part of a team; comfortable collaborating with and channeling the multiple collaborators involved in NGO communications pro-jects. •Eager to travel widely and willing to work unusual hours. •Able to think quickly and creatively under pressure. •Education: BA degree in journalism, communications, media production or related field.